Shiltpron (Term)
A musical instrument invented by the simes to be played with fingers and tentacles. It can be modulated in either audio or nageric ranges, or both at once. A skilled channel playing the shiltpron can use an ambient Gen nager to control the level of consciousness of nearby simes. Nageric modulation by even a moderately skilled sime player can produce intoxicated simes. Some Companions can learn to modulate the shiltpron in the nageric range using their own body's fields. See selyn field manipulation. (Source: Index card file. Sime Surgeon -- http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/surgeon/SURGEON1.html) Plays in both audible and hyperconscious range. A forest of upright tines, webbing of taut strings. Played sitting down, cradling the instrument in the arms -- played with fingers and tentacles. Played in hyperconscious range by exposing laterals to the vibrating tines by actually touching them. Dancing is done with fields as well as bodies --- a channel can adjust his fields to show off a Donor's "pinwheel of modulated color." Simes feel it and drop into the rhythmic patterns as voices would join in a choir. Have definite effects on the sime body. Gens also join rhythm. Tecton youngsters would sneak off for "wild orgies" of shiltpron music with no Gens. A channel's gift --- the ability to play the shiltpron. Ambient nager flows through secondary system of the channel and into the shiltpron --- receiving and giving back redoubled --- a different form of functioning. Life flowing through him, a gift he could give: what a channel is for. A player's fear or panic might even cause death. Exhaustion --- then slow recovery --- many couples would eventually turn to sex. (Source: Index card file. "Shiltpron") In Klyd's time -- an arrangement of rods held by intricately twined tentacles, then shaken against each other to produce harmonic hums dampened by the touch of a tentacle. By Digen's time, strings had been added and it looked like a cross between a harp and a bagpipe. Played by finger plucking, mallet, bow, or all three at once. (Source: Index card file. Unto Zeor, Forever) "A musical instrument invented by simes to be played with fingers and tentacles. It can be modulated in either audio or selyn field ranges, or even both at once, which can produce intoxication in simes when done in the presence of Gens." Digen says simes by themselves alone can get "drunk" on shiltpron. Fits into curve of arm, fingers resting on strings. Resonating pipes and prongs pick up audio resonances of the strings and translate them into selyn field harmonics. Tentacles used on these. One insttrument made of rosewood. Ugly, cross between harp and bagpipe, played by finger plucking, with mallet or bow, or all three at once. First truly sime instrument invented. Own body translates the audio music of the strings into nageric harmonies, using both primary and secondary selyn systems to modulate the music. Expose laterals to the vibrating tines. Channels at Digen's First Year Camp had held secreet orgies of shiltpron music but no Gens. Gens can dance and modulate the shiltpron field with their bodies --- but no Tecton Gen would do it to stir a sime to Need, which would be torture rather than pleasure. Considered obscene to play like that in mixed sime~Gen company. Distect simes have no repressed Need. Digen has the whole room in transfer at once.